Alestorm – Black Sails At Midnight
Alestorm - Black Sails At Midnight (Digipak)
In early 2009, Alestorm released the cool Leviathan EP which consisted of 4 unreleased recordings: the title track; cover song “Wolves of the Sea”; Weiber Und Wein (Wenches And Mead sung in german); and Heavy Metal Pirates. The first 2 also make an appearance on the 10-track Black Sails full-length; a mild annoyance that to my mind detracted from my overall enjoyment of the album.
Being True Scottish Pirate Metal, this is a still a very fun album. My son is hooked on “Keelhauled” so I have listened to that at least 100 times. Maybe 1,000 times. That Famous Ol’ Spiced is an excellent ode to rum, while the title track sounds a lot like a Children Of Bodom song (especially the chorus). The music is fun, the lyrics are hilariously awful, but man I can’t get this album out of my head.
I originally anticipated a much higher placing for this but it was released early in 2009 and many releases since have just been better.
I can’t review this CD without mentioning the awesome packaging. I bought the deluxe digipak version (of course) which comes with a sweet DVD featuring Alestorm live at Wacken Open Air 2008. As hilarious as these guys are to listen to, it’s even funnier to see them perform live, especially the keytar. The digipak itself is a double-gatefold housed in a box, which looks like a treasure chest branded with a pirate seal.
In the end, had Alestorm added 3-4 more original songs (not already released on an EP) it would have made the album that much better and would have obtained a better rank than:
Grimby’s Rating: 8/10
Top 20 of 2009:
20 – Mastodon- Crack The Skye
19 – Wolf – Ravenous
18 – Alestorm – Black Sails At Midnight
Grimby: Army of One 